Cathedrals in the Wilderness
Type
Book
Authors
Category
Catholic Biography
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Publication Year
1952
Publisher
The Bruce Publishing Company, United States
Pages
334
Description
Among the most loved and best-known historical characters are pioneer Americans such as Boone, Pike, Lewis, and Clark. Their adventures in the pathless wilderness of the early West earned for them a glorious place in American history.
Less widely known, but equally colorful in his own field of exploration - that of saving souls - was their contemporary, Benedict Joseph Flaget, pioneer bishop of Bardstown, the diocese which was to become the "Mother Church of the West." Here at last is the fascinating story of the courage, zeal, and accomplishments of one of the ablest leaders of the Catholic Church in early America.
It was in the spring of 1792 when Flaget, a youthful Sulpician priest who had fled from the Reign of Terror in France, began his life work on the Western frontier of the United States. Though French in blood and speech, it was not long before the vigor of American freedom and life filled him with a burning love and patriotism that was to make him what he proved to be throughout the rest of his long life - an American by choice, by conviction, by character.
He had spent 18 years as a missionary and teacher when, despite his humble protests, he was consecrated as the first bishop of the newly-created diocese of Bardstown in Kentucky. Confronted with a task difficult enough to demand his utmost, he began unifying, building, and ministering in a diocese which extended in its immensity from Kentucky and Tennessee in the South to Minnesota and Michigan in the North. Here unreels the moving story of how Flaget saw the Church take root and spread in his diocese and throughout the United States and how he directed and cultivated that growth.
With a casual contempt for hardships, he undertook many arduous visitations of his diocese and covered thousands of miles on foot, on horseback, and by boat. What a scene for any reader's imagination: this elderly, stalwart pioneer still erect in the saddle after many hours of traveling! He carved a new stronghold of the Church out of this tremendous rugged territory. His reputation for saintly piety and keen judgment spread throughout the United States and Europe and was recognized in Rome.
Taken from the back cover.
Less widely known, but equally colorful in his own field of exploration - that of saving souls - was their contemporary, Benedict Joseph Flaget, pioneer bishop of Bardstown, the diocese which was to become the "Mother Church of the West." Here at last is the fascinating story of the courage, zeal, and accomplishments of one of the ablest leaders of the Catholic Church in early America.
It was in the spring of 1792 when Flaget, a youthful Sulpician priest who had fled from the Reign of Terror in France, began his life work on the Western frontier of the United States. Though French in blood and speech, it was not long before the vigor of American freedom and life filled him with a burning love and patriotism that was to make him what he proved to be throughout the rest of his long life - an American by choice, by conviction, by character.
He had spent 18 years as a missionary and teacher when, despite his humble protests, he was consecrated as the first bishop of the newly-created diocese of Bardstown in Kentucky. Confronted with a task difficult enough to demand his utmost, he began unifying, building, and ministering in a diocese which extended in its immensity from Kentucky and Tennessee in the South to Minnesota and Michigan in the North. Here unreels the moving story of how Flaget saw the Church take root and spread in his diocese and throughout the United States and how he directed and cultivated that growth.
With a casual contempt for hardships, he undertook many arduous visitations of his diocese and covered thousands of miles on foot, on horseback, and by boat. What a scene for any reader's imagination: this elderly, stalwart pioneer still erect in the saddle after many hours of traveling! He carved a new stronghold of the Church out of this tremendous rugged territory. His reputation for saintly piety and keen judgment spread throughout the United States and Europe and was recognized in Rome.
Taken from the back cover.
Number of Copies
1
